“For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

 when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.”  Psalm 139: 13-16

When your home is full of paint cans, moved furniture, and half-finished projects, it’s easy to feel like chaos has completely taken over your life. The stress, mess, and unexpected accidents can make ordinary days feel overwhelming and frustrating. But what if those hectic moments are not just inconveniences to endure? What if cleaning messes, fixing mistakes, and navigating household chaos can actually become moments that shape our perspective and deepen our gratitude? Can the most ordinary and messy parts of life reveal something meaningful about faith and the blessings we often overlook?

When you look down and your hands are covered in potting soil, it’s tempting to imagine your soul as something ethereal - too light and perfect for this world, something on a whole different level.  But are your hands and your soul so far away from each other?  Are they, in fact, unified in some way?  Can the act of planting flowers cause something beautiful to sprout inside us as well?

Life can be exhausting and feel chaotic, as we all know.  How do we wake up and face each day when that’s all that we can see on any given day?  You’ll encounter some “Dad-Advice” and also some reassurance that you’re not in those trenches (or that boat, whatever analogy works best for you) alone.

How do you feel about these words: repetitious, routine, ordinary, mundane?  Do they make you want to yawn, or can you find the importance and value of them?  Perhaps this post can help give you a new perspective on how to make these words more desirable and to help us see the value of them in our daily lives.

Often a study can make us more aware of the “norms” around us and get a feel for where we fit in with the rest of our society.  This particular study that got me thinking reflected on the inner thought life of the average person.  Some of us think too much, and some of us don’t think enough!  I didn’t need to tell you that, though, I’ll bet!  How can we help channel our thoughts to places that bring us to a better place than either extreme: stress or boredom?

Having the perspective that each day of our life is a gift from God to use can remind us that we have an important daily choice: to make our time into a liturgy or to fritter it away.  What are you choosing in the rituals and rhythms of your life?  How are you being intentional about spending the minutes God gives you?

Looking for order?  Trying to control the chaos?  This is not a Good Housekeeping article about achieving those goals, but rather a broader perspective on how we can find sanctity and peace in finding our solid place in our Creator regardless of what the day or the world holds for us at any given moment.

Peek in your bedroom a minute.  Did you make your bed this morning?  Come explore a few thoughts about our new chapter title and what significance it could represent in your own life.

One thousand, four hundred, forty.  1,440.  Does this number hold any significance to you?  This number indicates how many minutes each one of us has in a 24-hour day here during our existence on planet Earth.  If you were to see a circle graph showing where those minutes go, would it please your heart?  More importantly, would it please God’s heart?  Spend a few of your 1,440 minutes today thinking about numbering your days and striving for a heart of wisdom.

In what way do we demonstrate our feelings of affection and fondness to those we care about the most in our lives?  If we only see the value of the “big things” but don’t find worth in all the thousands of “little things” that we do on a regular basis, we miss out on one of the most significant messages of the incarnation: our attitude allows us to glorify God in all that we do.

Do you ever find yourself lost in the chaos of your busy week and scrambling in the hectic gear that the switch of your life has somehow gotten stuck in lately?  Give yourself grace, as God gives you grace, and allow yourself to absorb the truth of God’s daily gift to you: love and tenderness in His eyes when He watches you.  Slow down for a minute and take a second to return His smile!

For each one of us, where we worship and how we worship can be a matter of preference.  Look for the ways in the spaces you inhabit that you best experience God’s presence and pay attention to where you most clearly hear God’s voice in your life!

God calls us to see the world through a perspective that celebrates the average and ordinary moments, days, months, even years in our lives.  Think about Jesus’ life and how much of its timeline appears in the Bible; find encouragement in knowing that God sees those more mundane moments in our lives as well and puts value on them!

What would you consider your identity?  If you were to create a resume with all the tasks that you perform in an average week, how many pages would that section take?  God has gifted each one of us with opportunities to take on all sorts of roles in our lives.  Just remember your most important one!

Our journeys with Jesus are as unique as our fingerprints!  Reflect on how you met your best friend as you hear parts of one person’s story.

Come join us on a journey through a new book, profound in its simplicity and eloquence: Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren.  Once you peek into some of the ideas contained with it, you may find yourself wanting to order a copy of your own to marinate your thoughts in this season!  Be prepared for diving into stories, digging into new linguistic treasures, and pondering everyday and regular things with a new appreciation!

Do we matter?  Do we contribute to the world?  If our answer to either of those questions is no, surely all significance seeps out of our existence.  Look for ways to make sure that your children can answer YES to both of those questions, and watch the blessings grow in their lives!

How do you feel about “To Do” lists?  Some of us might turn and run at the idea of these, while others of us are enamored with them.  Where do they fit into our rhythms, and when do they start to interfere with them?  All of us will find ourselves challenged at different points by the suggestions in this book.  See if you can figure out what God is showing you by your reactions to the practices suggested.

If you were to walk around your house and look for creative outlets that have always brought you pleasure, would you see accumulations of dust on them?  Perhaps it’s your sewing machine or your paintbrushes that have been buried deep in storage for years that you stumble over that remind you of what used to be a part of your habits and have gone by the wayside.  Open your heart to what God might be whispering in your ear about committing time to creating again!